Untangling a tangled web: an overview of web-based instruction programs

Over the past several years, many college and university faculty have developed courses or course components for delivery to students over the Web. Most of these faculty had expertise or interests that included developing Web pages and Web-based activities prior to commencing their development of Web-based courses. Many of these faculty were highly skilled in using HTML, Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) or similar scripting and authoring programs. Many of these technology-using faculty enjoyed the creative aspect of developing their own Web sites for use with their classes and were willing to expend the time and effort that was required to develop these courses. However, many other faculty did not and do not have the expertise, the time or the inclination to develop the requisite skills that were needed to create Web-based courses. In the mid-1990s, Web-based instruction programs started being developed by institutions and commercial establishments to address the need for faculty to create Web-based courses without necessarily having to invest large quantities of time to learn HTML or similar programs. As more of the Web-based instruction programs were developed, additional faculty began using them to deliver a wide variety of courses, from engineering to Italian to geography to art. This migration by many colleges and universities from traditionally delivered and distance-delivered courses to Web-based courses has created a snowball effect. The more courses being offered over the Web, the more Web-based instruction (WBI) programs are developed, leading to more courses on the Web. With the proliferation of WBI programs, many institutions are in a quandary concerning which program to use. Each program included in this analysis was used to the fullest extent in a demonstration setting. This author made two decisions prior to examining the WBI programs. The first was to not focus on price. Although price certainly will be a consideration when a WBI program is purchased, it was deemed unacceptable to allow price to color the decisions and evaluations at this point. The second decision was that instructors must be able to use both major desktop platforms to create, manage and run the programs and students needed to be able to interact with the program regardless of their equipment. Each of the following sections will describe the program, key features, and perceived strengths and weaknesses. Serf Created by the University of Delaware, Serf is a powerful program. It allows five types of users: System Administrators; Administrators, whose primary functions are to maintain various lists and objects and assign "classes" to the instructors; Instructors, who can be given the option by the administrators to create and edit courses; Teaching Assistants, who have some, but not all of the privileges of the instructors; and Students. This particular program seemed to require passwords or "tickets" on almost every screen. Although the security factor is strong, it was a bit cumbersome to continually have to stop and retype your user ID and password. Also, different sections required different passwords and IDs. This author finished evaluating Serf with four or five different IDs and passwords. If he returned to the program, the likelihood of remembering all the passwords and IDs (which the system required to be different) is low. After entering the program as an instructor, one could "insert," "add," "move," or "delete" a syllabus. Since directions were not present, it was initially assumed that the insert function would import a previously created syllabus from a word processor into the program. Therefore edit was selected and a syllabus could not be created. One actually must select insert to create the initial syllabus. A change in the name of the "insert" button to the "create" button would be an improvement. To add students, one goes into the "roster" section and simply types them in. …